


Like A Girl

by Berty



Category: Wilby Wonderful (2004)
Genre: Canon - Movie, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-11-22
Updated: 2009-11-22
Packaged: 2017-10-03 13:25:23
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 865
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18598
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Berty/pseuds/Berty
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Sandra wants to share the benefit of her experience with Duck.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Like A Girl

Duck was finishing the dishes - one plate, one fork, one glass - even this simple task mocked him - when he heard the knock. His first thought was that it would be Buddy, but the familiar voice calling "Helloooo?" instantly put that idea out of his mind.

By the time he got to the hallway, Sandra already had the door open and was smiling at him, with an armful of boxes. Duck tucked the dry cloth in his pocket and relieved her of the top two.

"Hi, Sandra. What's this?" he asked.

With her now spare hand, Sandra pulled the screen door shut and without waiting for an invitation, walked into the kitchen.

"Made you something," she grinned at him, dumping car keys and the remaining box onto the worktop.

"How come?" Duck asked, trying not to let the defensiveness he felt creep into his voice.

"Heard you'd had a bad week. What else are friends for if not to feed you comfort food when you're feeling like shit?"

"What is this? You and Buddy on suicide watch or something? He put you up to this?"

Sandra blinked at him. "Buddy's been out here?"

"Yesterday," Duck muttered, slightly guilty because she did actually seem surprised.

"Good," she said simply, turning away quickly. "So, you gonna help me out with this?" She reached into one of the boxes and pulled out a lavishly decorated chocolate cake.

"Why are you doing this? I'm not… It isn't…" Duck fell silent because he _was_ depressed and it _was_ the end of the world as far as he was concerned. He and Dan had been together for only eleven months, but it was the longest relationship he'd ever had and he missed the simple day-to-day things they'd shared so badly it felt like an effort to even breathe sometimes.

"Listen, Duck, I have broken up with more guys than you can possibly imagine." Sandra smiled sadly, placing the cake carefully beside the box.

She was pretty, Duck thought, in a tarnished, tired kind of way. He'd been as surprised as anyone when Sandra had returned and quietly pleased when she had ignored the gossip and the stares that Wilby residents seemed to do so well, and stayed. Her little café was now a place where the kids went in the evenings to drink coke, eat burgers and flirt, but she saw to it that there was never any trouble or noise, so even the busybodies hadn't had any cause for complaint.

"I've been the broken hearted and the heart breaker, there isn't a thing I don't know about this stuff. I thought I'd come over and give you the benefit of my years of fieldwork," she explained, riffling in his kitchen drawers, and coming up with a knife. "I also have decided to offer three new types of dessert, and I need a guinea pig."

Duck watched Sandra as she paused, waiting for his decision. She looked like she was used to being turned down when making a friendly gesture; there was a kind of wariness about her, and Duck had the impression that she had a line already prepared to laugh this all off in case he said no.

Duck had wondered if she and Buddy had ever been close. He knew that there had been a spark or something there for a while, just before he and Dan had got together, but if they had been physical then, he'd seen no signs of it since. In fact Sandra had been a model citizen for a while now, and the rumour mill had rolled onto its next unlucky contestants - him and Dan, but also MacKenzie Fisher and Daniel Brescanon at times.

He'd liked Sandra at high school. Despite her lamentable tendency to tumble any boy who'd smiled her way, she'd been straightforward, sunny and about as far from arrogant as you could get. As a guy who knew all about social acceptability, he'd had a lot of sympathy for the way Sandra had been regarded by the island community. What she'd done had been no worse than Buddy and his 'girlfriend of the week' mentality, but because she'd been female, she had been ostracised, looked-down on and finally squeezed out. It was a mark of her spirit, courage and sense of humour that she had returned at the age of thirty-eight with a daughter in tow.

And now here she was, standing in his kitchen, bold as you like, braver than Duck'd ever be, setting herself up for another disappointment.

Did he want to talk about losing Dan? Did he want to put into words the initial high and the slow decline of their eleven months together as he'd tried to give Dan what he'd needed to ignore the cold looks and the obvious whispers? Of course not.

But did he want to turn down this simple offer of friendship and confirm for Sandra her fear that she would never truly be accepted on the island?

No he didn't.

Maybe it was time for a new way of doing things on Wilby Island.

Duck pulled out a fork and peered into the box nearest him. "What have you got then?"

Fin


End file.
